ARDS 



Benj. S. 



Parker 



-Z^^^l-Ci^LJZtiL^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

%p ®nM"S|l ^u- 

UNITED STATES OF ASIERICA. 



Hoosler Bards 



WITH SUNDRY 



Wildwood and Other Rhymes 



By 



V^' 



^ 



BENJAMIN S^'^PARKER 

Author of " The Cabin in the Clearing,''^ etc. 




CHICAGO 

Charles H. Kerr & Company 

175 Dearborn Street 

1891 



TO ALL LOVERS 

OF THE BIRDS AND TREES THIS LITTLE 
VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED, 

BY ONE WHO IS NOT ASHAMED OF HIS KINSHIP 

WITH THE WILD LIFE OF WOOD 

AND STREAM. 



Copyrighted according to a<5t of Congress, 

by 

BENJAMIN S. PARKER. 



PRESS OF THE COURIER COMPANY, NEW CASTLE, INDIANA. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface, 

Proem, 

HoosiER Bards, .... 

The Building of the Monument, 
To J. W. R. ON Visiting England, 

The Poet, 

In Summer Time, 

The Plodder, 

That Rare Old Laugh, . 

The Democracy of Toil, 

The Land of First Love, 

The Old Blazed Road, 

After Decoration, . 

On Groaving Old, 

The Weirs, .... 

The Lesson of the Grass, 

Written in an Album, 

Thomas M. Browne, 

The Bard of the People, 

The Mosses, 

The Shout of an Optimist, 

To Coates Kinney, 

My Little Brother, 

Break, Sad Heart ! . . . 

The House not Made with Hands, 

O, Naked Soul ! 

To the Survivors of the Thirty'-Sixth, 

The Coming of Winter, 

A Colloquy, 

Song of the Dew Drop, 

Late in November, . 

Casco Bay, 

The Tide Mill, . 

The Mortgage, 

The First Caws, 

To John Clark Ridpath, 

Society Verse, . 

Service, .... 

To Our Singing Doctor, 

Two Sides of a Question, 

Afternoon Philosophy, 

Au Revoir, 



PREFACE. 



PREFACE. 

If any reader has been tempted to peruse 
this little volume by the promptings of curi- 
osity, or a desire to see what one Indiana 
rhymer could find, either good or ill. to say of 
his neighbors who are poets, I trust he will 
permit me to arrest him at the threshold long 
enough to disabuse his mind of any such no- 
tion. I have certainly not set myself up as a 
critic — either w^holesale or retail — of the 
Hoosier poets who are striving (many of them 
with merited success) to deserve the good 
opinions of their fellow^- men. Far be it from 
me to attempt such a hazardous task. Poets 
can talk back, and some of them wield trench- 
ant as well as graceful pens. The bards of 
whom I have written neither talk nor write, 
wherefore it is reasonably safe to experiment 
with their feelings. That they can sing with 
an excellence exceeding praise none will gain- 
say. "But w^hy, " says one, "do you name 
these tuneful neighbors of ours ^Hoosier 
Bards? ' they are not peculiar to Indiana. No 
such ' pent-up Utica restrains their powders* nor 
can it claim them as wholly its own. " The ob- 
jection to my title, thus presented in the form 
of a query, is, perhaps, well taken. I grant 
that our favorite singing birds are common 



PREFACE. 



to a wide area, but to me they are ' ' Hoosier 
Bards" because it was in the wild woods of 
Indiana that I first learned to know them and 
to rejoice in their singing, and wherever I 
have heard them since they have always re- 
newed for me the rude but happy surround- 
ings of the backwoods Hoosier home. Of the 
other things in the volume there is nothing 
for me to say save to express the hope that 
they may give pleasure and even profit to 
some without being a source of regret to any. 

B. S. P. 



THE SMELL of pennyroyal in the woods, 
The pungent tingle of the spicetvoocVs bark, 

Gray squirreh feeding on the hickory buds 

With frisk and chatter ; where the woods are dark 

The call of some lone bird above her nest, 

Whose sorrow haunts yet not disturbs the breast : 

These call and woo me from the noisy town. 

When first the red-bud dons her purple shroud 
And blossom-snows from hawthorns patter down, 

Where bees hum loui and frogs are gladly loud. 
At clearing-edge or in the thicket's heart 
To note each touch of Nature's artless art. 

Here with my Lowell ready at command, — 

0, freedom-loving Lowell, bard divine/ 
What would I not have given t'have touched thy hand 

And felt one thrill of thy great pulse in mine! 
Thau who, possessed of wit's Damascan steel. 
Used its keen edge but for the common weal! — 

Thus, oft when spring awakes the sleeping land, 

1 love to wander crooning some old tune. 
Some thought the trees and birds may understand, 

2 he haunting dream of some departed June ; 
And from such journeyings come ivith many a sheaf 
Of rhyme-entangled blossom, bird and leaf. 



HO OSIER BARDS. \ 1 



HOOSIER BARDS. 

Within his shadowy, lone retreat, 

The brown thrush pipes a silver song; 
Brief, mellow, penetrating, sweet, 

Its echoes cling and linger long 
In forest aisles and by the rims 

Of dead'nings, where the rabbits hide 
And bluebirds chant their vernal hymns, 

As violets waken wonder-eyed, 
O, hermit poet! Shunning all 

The loud-tongued fame that others seek. 
And singing but to love's low call 

Where silence dwells by swamp and creek 
No seas that beat their stormy capes. 

No mountains blue in frozen air. 
Inspire thee when thy genius shapes 

To wild-wood music all things fair; 
Condensing into one brief strain 

The anthemed chorus of the woods, 
Springs spicy fragrance after rain, 

The laughter of the falling floods, 
The subtle, vibrant soul and sense 

Of leafy solitudes, the art 
Of artless things, the crisp, intense 

And awesome joy the woods impart. 



12 UOOSIER BARDS. 



High on the orchard's topmost spray 

The jay repeats his roHc call ; 
A harlequin in blue and gray, 

A pert aristocrat, a tall, 
Becheckered egotist, a beau 

Who nods and cackles and assumes — 
The purblind critic ne'er would know 

The poet in such gaudy plumes; 
And yet, at times his song attains 

A starlight penetrance of tone, 
Like notes that fall in silver rains 

From bugles over waters blown. 

Gray squirrel barking on the tree, 

Thou rustic bard of cheerful mien, 
Recalling with thy ringing glee 

The bank-full brook, the woodland green, 
And waking summer from her sleep; 

The blossoms rally to thy cry, 
The hills grow white with wandering sheep. 

And white clouds wander through the sky, 
AVhile to the dotard's veins return 

The sap of long-departed spring; 
O, jaunty squirrel I Who shall spurn 

Thy backwoods dialect's saucy ring? 

A brush-heap half o'er grown with vines, 
A tangle of last summer's grass. 

Where sloping west the meadow lines 
Melt into thicket and morass : 

A blur of wings that hum and whir, 
An instant drop, a silent dart 



HOOSIER BARDS. 13 



Neath grass and vines and then no stir 
Except of one, poor trembling heart: 

In vain the baffled hunter's gaze, 
In vain his eager, peering quest ! 

One timid bard's retiring wa^'s 
Preserve untorn his downy breast. 

Where pasture shrubs are tliick and low 

And blue bells ring their faint perfume, 
The sweet song sparrow's numbers flow 

To time the march of bud and bloom ; 
And cheerily from leafless stems 

Of blasted trees the blue birds wake 
Spring's welcome echoes, by the hems 

Of beechen wood and willowy brake. 
Pied eheewinks by the garden wall, 

Brown wrens where currant bushes thron< 
Small poets are, whose lays recall 

The humble bard's forgotten song. 

March brings the noisy blackbird's joy 

Of gusty music, rash and free : 
More reckless than the truant boy 

Who dares fate's worst in wanton glee, 
His song is art's abandon, yet 

No note is out of place, nor caught 
In any discord's tangled net 

The threads of his marauding thought. 
Wild, stormy singer, brave and true 

And leal and loyal to thy kind. 
Though owls may fret and hawks pursue. 

Thine is the free, th' unconquered mind. 



i4 HOOSIER BARDS. 



When golden pippin trees are white 

Some mellow, liquid notes are heard 
That mingle in one brief delight 

The thought of man, the soul of bird. 
Sing on, my redbird ! Strains that speak 

A tenderer hope than words can tell : 
The boor who named thee for thy beak 

Had never felt the witching spell 
Of wild-bird music such as cleaves 

The crust of pride and wafts the soul 
From hate that blinds and care that grieves 

To love-taught art's divinest goal. 

The turtle dove whose numbers move 

In mourning patience, calm, subdued, 
By meadow lawn or oaken grove. 

Keeps watch above her fledging brood ; 
And on the dead trees hollow bole 

The gay wood-pecker plies his bill, 
And "rat tat tat" his martial roll 

Rings bravely over field and hill; 
His quaint call echoes loudly now. 

And now he rides the waves of light, 
A swinging dory, whose red prow 

Tilts up and down in zig-zag flight. 

Broad pinions checkered gray and brown, 
A breast as white as swan wings are. 

An eye that from the sky looks down 
And sights the covey fleeing far; 

A graceful form that soars and swings 



HOOSIER BARDS. 15 



And floats entranced in lazy ease, 
Or in swift spirals upward springs — 

A mote in dim ethereal seas. 
Who sees him swooping on his prey 

Swift as dissolving meteors speed, 
But pardons for its matchless way 

The cruel outcome of his deed. 
And owns the hated hawk a king 

High in the eagle's royal line, 
A regal bard who scorns to sing. 

But claims his rank by right divine? 

Where singing grass and clover bloom 

The happy meadow-lark inspire, 
He weaves in song's enchanted loom 

The music of his heart's desire. 
His cheerful notes are blithe and sweet, 

As by the mint-encumbered rill, 
Wild buttercups and lilies meet, 

And cowslips all their gold distill 
In warbled fragrance from his beak. 

When scythes assail the grass his breast 
Is troubled, and his numbers speak 

His care for mate and brood and nest. 

When first the willow catkins show. 
And water elms put on a veil 

Of golden glory, and the flow 
Of maple sap in trough or pail 

With merry drip and tinkle makes 
The pulses leap, the fancies throng, 



1 6 HOOSIER BARDS. 



Then robin comes at dawn and wakes 

And gladdens all the world with song: 
High on the cherry tree he tunes 

His voice to many a winsome lay, 
Or in the long, sweet afternoons 

Till sunset sings his soul away. 
Best bird and wise, no idle praise 

Nor foolish blame disturbs his breast; 
Content, he weaves divinest lays 

Or toils at humble love's behest. 
We crown him laureate of our woods 

And welcome his returning wings, 
And dream of joy's beatitudes 

Whene'er the vernal robin sings. 

Swift swarms of swallows dip and skim. 

And touch the cloud and kiss the stream, 
And tanagers in woodlands dim 

Flash like the wonders of a dream 
On dazzled senses, and are gone, 

But leave the infinite charm and stress 
Of scarlet sunset, golden dawn, 

Impressed by their own loveliness. 

A glint and glow of star-beams caught 

In blossom tangles, or a slight, 
Swift sense of fragrance, or the thought 

The poet knows of, — dear delight, 
So near, so far, so quick to fade, 

So hard to catch, so hard to hold, — 
And lo, the humming bird ! the shade 



HO OSIER BARDS. 1 f 



Of summer gladness, green and gold, 
And petal winged and rainbow-kissed. 

Comes quivering, flashing, pulsing by, 
A meteor born of sun and mist 

In some cloud island pure and high; 
A snatch of tune, a quaint refrain. 

Too brief and sweet for tardy sound, 
The dreamed-of Song's liquescent Skein 

On conscious core of sunlight wound. 

When finches fleck with gray and gold 

The garden walks, or chatter low 
Where pea vines cluster green, or hold 

Their legislatures by the flow 
Of meadow rivulets, the wheat 

On many a hillside's Southern slope 
Grows yellow, and life's pulses beat 

The forward march of ripening hope. 

The cat-bird in the lilac scolds. 

But yonder in the hazel dell 
His crazy-quilt of song enfolds 

His sylvan world in magic spell: 
All warbled strains, all woodland runes 

Run lightly through his stolen song ; 
A plagiarist he, to whom all tunes 

Of all the feathered choirs belong ; 
A tipsy Quaker quaintly clad 

In leaden garb of chaste design; 
A rolic roysterer, wildly glad, 

A madman with a voice divine ; 



18 HOOSIER BAUDS. 



From shreds of melody and sounds 

Of native minstrelsy he spins 
In many a maze of tangled rounds 

His song of songs when love begins — 
When love first prompts to win and woo, 

And build the nest that leaves may hide, 
To seek the grub, the moth pursue, 

And guard his prim but songless bride. 

The kildeer flits above the sands 

With sharply iterated cry, 
Or on the half-sunk bowlder stands 

And peers about with curious eye. 
Then bows and curtsies left and right, 

Or runs along the river's brink, — 
A quick, impetuous water sprite 

Who pauses not for food or drink. — 
Some strange ambition haunts his thought, 

Some stranger fear his will restrains, 
And brings each sudden quest to naught, 

And multiplies his restless pains. 
On some lone cape where ocean sands 

Are by inconstant waters worn, 
On farthest reach of barren lands 

His wild progenitors were born; 
The gloom of clouds, the storm's despair, 

The pulse of waves that cry and beat. 
Pursue and haunt him everywhere, 

Inspire his wings and speed his feet; 
And so he beais a restless heart 

And seems a trifler impulse-torn. 



HOOSIER BARDS. 1$ 



A lithe winged crank whose highest art 
Is whim half-witted and forlorn. 

Low broods the crow on beating wing, 

A self-sufficient egotist, 
Who counts that all who toil or sing 

Must bring his mill some precious grist 
To keep him alwavs sleek and proud; 

On highway, farm, in vocal grove, 
Still caw, caw, cawing at the crowd 

Of humble bards who chant of love; 
A critic coarsely vain and fierce, — 

Estranged in this from critic kind — 
As Lowell sings in limpid verse — 

He always heads against the wind. 

Now wide-winged herons haunt the pond, 

Or fan the air in lazy flight. 
And whippoorwills in woods beyond 

With plaintive outcry fill the night; 
The owl with solemn hoot replies 

And dreams himself a prophet born, 
While far away in hazy skies 

The wild goose honks across the corn. 

When all the forest aisles resound 

With crash and boom and distant roar, 

And windy tumults shake the ground 

And trees break down with feathered store. 

And many swiftly-pulsing wings 

Are spread at once in sudden fright. 



20 HOOSIER BARDS. 



Till every fleeting minute brings 

The noise of some delirious flight, 
And all the air is dark with swarms 

Of pigeons in their quest for food, — 
While autumn leaves in eddying storms 

Are beaten by the feathered flood, — 
O! then to range the woods and know 

The thrills of this gregarious joy, 
Who would not leave his dreams and go 

To be again a backwoods boy, 
As wild and free as bird and breeze? 

But forests melt and pigeons fade, 
And their wild rhyme of thundering seas 

Is passing fast with beechen shade. 

And there are other bards; alas! 

Unheeded bards and little heard 
By dull-eared men whose schemes surpass, 

In their own wisdom, song and bird 
And rhyme and pathos; men who make 

A jest of poetry, or dwell 
Where love for greed or passion's sake 

Is tortured in a songless hell: — 
So many and so little known 

By men who dream or men who mope, 
But you may hear them if you own 

A gentle will, a tender hope: 
They haunt the piquant, spicy woods, 

Build low in fragrant fields, or nest 
Beneath the cottage eaves ; their broods 

Are hid where spangled mosses rest; 



IIOOSIER BARDS. 21 



Glad warbling poets, wild-wood seers, 

Sweet improvisatores of song; 
They bring tis back the ha^ipy years, 

The mornings when the days were long. 

These minstrel bardt- of fields and woods, 

The vibrant air, the emerald sod, 
These winged, melodious multitudes 

Are wise interpreters of God, 
And swift and true their tender art 

Goes straight to nature's central core 
And warms and thrills each waiting heart 

Till men stand conquered and adore. 



22 THE BUILDING OF THE MONUMENT. 



THE BUILDING OF THE MONUMENT. 

READ AT THE CAMP FIRE AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE 
OF THE soldiers' MONUMENT, INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 22, 1889. 

Wat s words to them nhose faith an'' truth 
On ivar^s red techstone rang true metaf, 

Who ventered life an' love an' youth 
For the gret prize o' death in buttle ? 

— James Russell Lowell. 

To die in brave, unselfish sacrifice 

For friend or kindred marks the lofty soul, 
"Whose love exceeds all bounds of praise or price, 
Strong to the core and grandly sound and whole, 

And dowered with life that spurns the dust and 

springs 
In fame's horizon on triumphant wings. 

But when a hero dies for liberty 

No pagans of praise can reach his meanest right, 
No bark that sails on fame's siderial sea 
May bear aloft in history 's shadow light 

Ev'n one poor tithe of his devoted worth 
To home, to country, to th' indebted earth. 

Our soldiers came from all the ranks of peace. 
Were men of peace, but men whose souls were 
great 

In their great love — that knew but swift increase 
When deadly perils thronged about the Statue, — 



THE BUILD fNG OF THE MONUMENT. 23 

Their great, strong love of freedom, union, 

right, 
Firm in its purpose, loyal in its might. 

No monumental pile of lettered stone, 

No flight of eloquence, no lisp of song, 

Nor ocean voice of multitudes, far blown 

Across the list'ning ages as they throng, 

Can recompense one mother for her dead, 
Nor heal love's anguish o'er a soldier's bed. 

But yet the lettered shaft is type and sign 

Of that imperishable pile that stands 
Eternal in the thought of man, — divine 
As every work of love's immortal hands, — 

Wherein all hero deeds are wrought and blent 
To one strong hope, one purpose, one intent. 

That hope, intent, is freedom: Who is free? 

Not he who sees his fellows bound in chains 
And robbed and torn, and bends the supple knee 
To brute assumption, or at best remains 

A cold spectator when the outcry comes 
And all the land is palpitant with drums. 

This monument we raise shall long make known 

Ev'n to the stolid gazer, with no eyes 
For unseen things, that freedom loves her own 
And crowns her heroes, and that nations rise 

And prosper best which most confide in man 
And forward march with freedom in the van. 



24 THE BUILDING OF Til?: MO SU ME ST. 

O, Indiana, mother of brave men ! 

Men who have hoped and dared and died for thee: 
Who have enacted, for thy sake, again 
The dread obedience of Thermopylfe, 

The sacrificial strife of Bunker Hill, 
Matured in purpose, masterU-ss in will. 

Thy mother, thought, in building to their fuuie, 

Plas bloomed in honor, may it fruit in deed 
Of larger import than hope dares to name, 
To bless the world, to banish tyrant greed 

That dwarfs and crashes, to enlarge the day 
That lights man's footsteps on the upward way! 

When men forget the deeds our heroes wrought, 

Immortal Lincoln's never-fading lines, 
That melied with their touch of burning thought 
The bondman's fetters; when the land reclines 

In that soft ease that spurns the patriot's toil, 
Then demagogues may claim it as their spoil. 

Then may the lust of power, the craze of greed, 

And anarchy that feeds her hungry hordes 
On broken hearts, ride on with reckless speed 

Nor fear the avenging wrath of freedom's swords: 
But God be praised I the people stand erect 
And true and noble in their self-respect. 

Their self-respect, their love for law, their zeal 
For this good government the fathers gave. 

So much imbued with freedom each would feel 
Himself a slave, if the land held a slave: 



THE BUILDIAG OF THE MONUMENT. 25 

For patriots are patriots first of all, 

Alert to freedom's danger, instant to her call. 

Eepublicans and Democrats are we, 

Or what you will for party; but as one 
Strong unit, firm, united, earnest, free, 

Henceforth we stand for all our heroes won: 
One hope ins}>iring every sister State, 
One perfect union grandly free and great. 

Each name that grateful Indiana writes 

On yonder pile she builds to hero fame, 
Each gallant deed her history recites. 

Each word for him whose headstone bears no name, 
Shall teach the generations as they rise 
Our freedcmi's cost in blood and sacrifice. 

And not alone to those who staked their lives 
Or fell in death, we build, for God was good 
And gave us mothers, sisters, sweethearts, wives. 

Whose hearts were true through gathering tears and 
blood, 
Whose hands upheld the hands that fought and 

won. 
And crowned the brave men when their work 
was done. 

01 mothers, sisters of our hero dead, 
O! ye who wept the unreturning brave, 

Daughters or dearer ones, whose tears were shed 
As love's libations ; ye were strong to save 



26 THE BUILDING OF THE MONUMENT. 

The land we love! Long may your sainted 

names 
Be history's treasure, freedom's trust and fame's. 

We build to love, not hatred; every stone 

We consecrate unto a soldier's fame 
Shall have a voice like Memnon's morning tone, 
And through the lapse of lapsing years proclaim 
Man's love for man in liberty's increase, 
And right's armistice which shall never cease. 

For peace is only peace when men are free, 
Chains and oppression are relentless war; 
The strong against the weak. The tyrant's glee 
Is but the shackle's clank. Hope's dawning star 
Smiles on red fields of storm and battle when 
Force crushes force that peace may reign again. 

Lay deep and strong your corner-stone; build high 

The shaft that speaks of glory ; let your love 
Outsoar your deed, for lo! the day is nigh 

When the white-tented hosts that camp above, 

Shall claim the last brave man whose head of 

gray 
Sheds its warm lustre on the land today. 

So shall you build, and may your building stand 

On sure foundations, sunk to nature's core; 
May freedom's spirit rule the happy land 

And peace and knowledge grow from more to more ; 
And when Time dies mid elemental wars 
May His last gaze be on the stripes and stars. 



TO J. W. R. 27 



TO J. W. R. 

On a Contemplated Visit To England. 

Since you and I each unto each confessed 

Faint hope that fame might favor and with toil 

combine 
To bear our names beyond the county line, 

You've conquered half the world, deserved the rest, 

And now to England hasten, love possessed, 
To bow your Western manhood at the shrine 
Of Avon's bard, or where the gracious Nine 

On Albion's Laureate their endowments pressed. 
Feel, in that air, how genius, art combine 
To weld in love our Anglo-Saxon lin^: 

Or in sweet Scotia, by enchanted Ayr, 

Walk arm in arm with Burns's ghost and blend 
Your kindred soul with his, as friend with friend. 

So may God prosper you and keep you in His care ! 



28 THE POET. 



THE POET. 

God made the poet, 

Nature wrought his heart; 
But foolish fortune 

Heeded not his ait. 

Heaven wooed the boy 
To songs divinest skill, 

But men and critics 
Joined to work him ill. 

His plea for love 

The cruel heart denied; 
His wail for bread 

Was silenced when he died. 

But from his ashes 

There uprose a tree, 
A brier, a vine, 

A flower to woo the bee : 

And men and maidens 
Sought the happy bovver 

To dream sweet dreams 

Through many an idle hour. 

They, listening, heard not 

But were still aware 
Of rhyme and motion 

In the ambient air: — 



THE POET. 29 



A viewless presence, 

Palpitating, sweet, 
That swayed their souls 

As zephyr sways the wheat 

When quails are nesting. 
Till each man and maid 

Discerned the poet 

Trembling through the shade. 

The poet dies not 

Though the man depart, 
Sweet mother nature 

Holds him in her heart, 

Renews his singing 

Year by year and swells 

Her aeons of bloom 
With his love miracles. 

God made the poet, 

Nature wrought his heart, 
But foolish fortune 

Heeded not his art, 

And when she famished 

On her gilded crust. 
The poet rose up singing 

From the dust. 



30 IN SUMMER TIME. 



IN SUMMER TIME. 

To L. 0. H. — True Poet and Gentleman. 

In summer time, at flush of noon, 
I love my discord, hate your tune; 
I love your song, forget my rhyme, 
At evening sweet in summer time. 
I shout your song, forget my rhyme. 
When birds and bees together chime, 
At morning's blush in summer time. 



THE PLODDER. 31 



THE PLODDER. 

O, poet, ray poet! on fancy's wing, 

From your nest in the world to the worlds that 

gleam 
In the astral depths of your cosmic dream 
Upsoaring forever, the songs you sing, — 
The thoughts that cluster about your way 
Like sun-swept clouds at the gates of day, — 
Come up from the low, sweet earth where toil 
Is guardian and groom to the fruitful soil. 

I am a plodder, and plodders know 

The cool, glad spots where the lilies grow ; 

And while you float in your airs divine, 

And rave of Apollo and chase the Nine, 

Each blossom takes root in the good, green earth. 

Each thought immortal has here its birth; 

And here at the core and heart of things. 

Toil is the minstrel that lords the strings 

Of the myriad-echoing lute of life. 

Here dreamers are vassals and plodders kings. 

And the hero who wages eternal strife. 

Not the child of fancy who floats and swings 

On the air of an old, dead dreara of things. 

Is the master whose art has the condor wings. 

And O, my poet! when you dig deep, 
With dearth of leisure and loss of sleep, 



32 THE PLODDER. 



When you plod with me, when you toil and moil 
In thought's rough field, truth's bitter soil, 
It is then you gain strength to soar on high; 
From the sweat of toil build your rainbow road 
Through the earth and the sky to the god's abode. 

I am the plodder, and day by day 
I do my work in my humble way ; 
I banish the bramble and sow the corn, 
Cherish the rose and destroy the thorn ; 
Conquer the savage, control the brute. 
Invade the desert with flower and fruit; 
Build your cities and sail your ships, 
Compound your nectars for beauty's lips: 
I feed the presses that hum and roar, 
And gather the news from sea and shore. 

I build the palace and dig the moat ; 

I fashion the noose for the murderer's thioat ; 

I shape and chisel the Sphinx's face 

Or weave the daintiest films of lace; 

I tunrjel the mountains and stretch the wire, 

Direct the lightning, and steam and fire 

Obey my will, as, by genius taught, 

I plod my way in the steps of thought. 

I was born of a thought, and yet I stand 

A servant forever, at thought's command: 

The violet blooms where my hand is laid 

Or the temple stands fair by the banyan's shade. 

You, poet, may sail on your ether wing. 
But till I have a hand in the song you sing 



THE PLODDER. 33 



It will kindle no smile, will provoke no tear, 
And will fade and be lost as a leaf that is sear. 

You walk with your head in the air, a god, ♦ 
While close to the grass and the mold T plod. 
You see the earth under you from on high; 
I look from the sod to the blessing sky. 
You win, with my help, a fadeless name; 
I chisel it deep in the temple of fame. 

But fame and its temple shall fade away, 

And names shall be lost as the dreams of a day; 

Then poet and plodder together shall rest 

Low cradled on Nature's compassionate breast ; 

But in heaven the plodder may sing, and the wise, 

Happy poet rejoice in the toils of the skies. 



34 THAT RARE OLD LA UGH. 



THAT RARE OLD LAUGH. 

Where is your happy laugh, comrade, 

That used to ring so free? 
Somehow., my old ears ache for it, 

As I heard it in sixty-three ; 
But you smile on me such a mournful smile, 

And chuckle so faint and low, 
That your laugh is only the ghost of the laugh 

That you laughed so long ago. 

Your hair was black as the beetle's wing. 

And your voice was brave and strong; 
And whether the battle was fierce and wild. 

Or the march was hard and long. 
That old, rare laugh^of yours would ring. 

When a comrade needed cheer. 
And shake the wrinkles of care out smooth, 

With its echoes glad and clear. 

AVhen rations were short and springs were dry, 

And our tongues were swollen, thick, 
I've heard your cheery old laugh ring high, 

And down on the double quick, 
Along the lines ran a~thrill of joy. 

With answering laugh and shout; 
For the boys caught on to the anchor, hope. 

Whenever your laugh rang out. 



THAT RARE OLD LAUGH. 35 

Then ha, ha, ha! and ha, ha, ha! 

Hurrah for the days of old! 
In tlie army time, in the soldier time. 

When hearts were true and bold. 
We shed some tears for the men who fell. 

We moaned in our' days of pain, 
But your cheery laugh was a cordial rare. 

That was never poured in vain. 

You laughed when you hobbled back to us, 

With crutch and bandage and sling, 
"To harvest three wounds at once," you'said, 

" Was a iroundQviwl sort of thing. " 
I can hear you call when the ague froze, 

Or the fever burned your brow; 
"It's no trick to be cool, no task to get warm, 

If you only just know how!" 

But where has your old laugh gone, my lad, 

And why has it died away? 
I knew that your form must be bent and old, 

And your hair and beard be gray, 
But the old, rare laugh that you used to laugh, 

I had thought to hear ring out 
From your dear old lips till my soul could stand 

Tiptoe on the hills and shout. 

Subdued and saddened and softened down 

By the stress of our social ways. 
Your laugh is timed to the steps of age, 

Not the marches of former days; 
Its bugle calls to the double quick 



36 THAT RARE OLD LAUGH. 

Shall never be heard again; 
' Tis now the treble of "Soldier's Rest, " 
Not the Marseillaise of men. 

Bui let us remember the laughs of old, 

And remember the comrade strong, 
And shake your old hand with a right good will, 

As we join in story and song ; 
For the war, and the boys, and the deeds will 
soon 

Be but memory, history, love, 
But we'll be friends till the bugle sounds 

To join the ranks above. 

And there, in that happy world, somewhere, 

Sometime, when the winds are low, 
And we can hear back in the far-away. 

Sweet sounds that we used to know, 
I think we shall hear your rare, old laugh 

Ring up o'er the golden bars 
'Till we shall leap on the hills and shout 

"Three cheers for the stripes and stars. " 



THE DEMOCRACY OF TOIL. 37 



THE DEMOCRACY OF TOIL. 

I do not hold and I will not hold 

That he who toils in the dust and mold 

Is less than the owner of lands and gold, 

Or bound, as a serf, in a righteous thrall 

To come and to go at the usurer's call. 

To bow to a master, to cringe and fawn 

For the sake of the rags that his limbs have on. 

One toils with the jliovel and one with the pen, 
And which is the greater or which more wise, 
Ivct no man question, for what are men 
To judge of the toils by which others rise? 
For toil is forever the angel's wing 
Thnt raises the peasant, deposes the king 
And gives us a man in his stead, the thing 
That poets honor and thieves despise. 

A poet may starve and deserve his death 

For singing nought worth its cost in breath, 

But he who teaches a rose to climb 

Or wooes from the mold with a will sublime 

The plumed and bannered delight of corn. 

Is priest to nature, though peasant born, 

As toiling with sun and mist and morn 

And the heat of noon and the e\ening's breath 

He bringeth life from the dust of death. 

And winneth from thistle and weed and thorn 

And savage squalor and feudal scorn, 

A world of beauty, a world of grace. 



38 THE DEMOCRACY OF TOIL. 

A warm, sweet world with a smiling face, 

To mirror faintly some tender line 

Of benignant joy from the face divine. 

A poet may starve and deserve his death 

For singing nought worth its cost in breath, 

A monarch may die for his country's good, 

A demagogue sink in the waste of mud 

His cunning expands for the feet of men. 

But an honest toiler with brawn or pen, 

At forge in forest, on land or main, 

Has ever the key to the truest gain, 

The gain that develops, or gain enwrought 

On the gain of growth by the growth of thought. 

I do not hold and I will not hold, 

That this swart toiler, by need controlled. 

Must trot forever with head bowed down 

At the chariot tail as the lordly clown. 

Or, lord by accident, drives away 

To the plaudits of fools who hope, some day, 

To task their fellows that selfsame way: 

For lord by title or lord by gain. 

Or lord by lineage, or lord by might ; 

American lord by oil or grain, 

By wreck of railroad, disdain of right; 

Or little lord in some country place 

By legalized thefts that would thieves disgrace. 

Usurious lordling with soul to crave 

The pennies that pay for the poor man's grave, 

I care not whence the white-washed fraud 

Receives its sanction to mock at God, 



THE DEMOCRACY OF TOIL. 39 



I do not hold and I will not hold 
That, by its crime of dishonest gold 
Such lordship stands in a nobler stead 
Than simple manhood that toils for bread. 

The world may laugh, bat I still must hold 

That vulgar pride which is born of gold, 

Yet not of gold, for the ore is pure, 

But of power it gives to oppress the poor, 

To flaunt and flutter and override, 

And to put on airs that were else denied, 

Is cruel as death and hard as fate 

To bind, to oppress, to desolate. 

I would not rage and I would not rend. 

Nor hasten in tears and blood the end : 

But the end will come, and the human heart 

That has quivered so long in the Godless mart. 

Will rise up whole, and the toiler's toil 

Shall be honored more than the rich man's spoil, 

And the gilded clown shall be only — a clown, 

And the man be up and the brute be down. 

And so I repeat and repeat again, 

Though standing, perhaps, as one to ten, 

That 1 do not hold and I will not hold. 

That he who toils in the dust and mold, 

Is less than the owner of lands and gold, 

Or bound as a serf, in a righteous thrall, 

To come and to go at the usurer's call. 

To bow to a master, or cringe and fawn 

For the sake of the rags that his limbs have on. 



40 THE LAND OF FIRST LOVE. 



THE LAND OF FIRST LOVE. 

There silence is music, 
And rest is rejoicing, 
And being is ecstasy 

Sweeter than morning, 
When corn bhides in whispers 
Are tenderly voicing 
The soul of the sunshine 

That tremblingly wooes them. 

There vows of the ages 
Are gathered and blended 
To one murmuring spirit, 

One echo melodious, 
As freed from all passion 
The notes had descended 
From heaven in dreamy, 

Delirious i)ulsations. 

There sounds not the Swan Song, 
The song of the dying, 
For hope is enchanter, 

And life is immortal; 
And all the sweet languors 
That ever went sighing 
Through amorous springtimes, 

Are centered and softened. 



THE LAyD OF FIRST LOVE. 41 

There, sweeter than pinks 
Or the breath of wild roses, 
A balm floateth in 

From the sea-girdled islands, — 
A wind of the morning, 
Where beauty reposes 
And veils her fair face 

In the light of her tresses. 

O, land of all lands I 

There are songs in thy fountains, 

And raptures untold 

In thy bloom-lighted meadows. 
While Muses divine 
Still inhabit thy mountains. 
And Pan leads his shepherds 

And flocks by thy rivers. 

Thy people are dreamers 
Whose lives are enchanted. 
Like Memnon of old, 

All thy rocks utter music. 
And all of thy castles 
And gardens are haunted 
By spirits that float 

In the palpitant starlight. 

There mortals have wings 
And are mortals no longer : 
At sunset and moonrise 

Tall seraphs, fair angels. 
Lock hands and glide onward, 



42 THE LAND OF FIRST LOVE. 

While love waxeth stronger, 
And sweetly delirious 

They rave in their heaven. 

O life and love! 

What is youth in its gladness 

Till once in this land 

It has dreamed and run riot", 
If waking be sorrow, 
Or mating be madness, 
There's joy in the mem'ry 

Of love and its longing. 



THE OLD BLAZED ROAD. 43 



THE OLD BLAZED ROAD. 

The old blazed road, it wound and wound, 

Through the depths of the forest dark and dim, 

Where the last year's leaves gave a muffled sound 
Under the horse-shoe's iron rim ; 

Over the hill by the wand'ring brook, 
Down where the buttonwood copses grew 

And the frogs were loud; by the smiling nook 
Where the parted oaks let the sunshine through. 

Wandering on in its lonesome way 

By fragrant tangle and drift-choked stream ; 

From the far-oflf village, a struggling ray 
Shot into the wild wood's savage -dream. 

And brave and true were the men who rode 

Deep into the wilderness long ago. 
And scored the trees for the old blazed road 

For the settlers to follow, and following so 

To come with their Avives and their worldly gear — 
Small worth had the gear, hope made it great — 

To love, to labor, to plant, to rear 
A solid base for the future State. 

There were happy journeys, on summer days, 
And songs and joy in the winters grim ; 

The lay of love and the chant of praise. 
The warrior's lyric, the Christian's hymn. 



44 THE OLD BLAZED ROAD. 

And many a bridal cavalcade 

?Ias graced its windings, as two by two. 

The backwoods lad and the backwoods maid 
With laughter ringing the forests through 

Frightened the deer from his noonday lair, 
•Scared off the fox to his gloomy den, 

And rufHed the tempers of wolf and bear. 
Or echoed the catamount's scream again. 

And O, for the sorrow I and O, for the tears! 

As the little plank coffin went on before, 
Borne in the patriarch's arms, whose years 

Were rich in symjiathy's garnered store. 

For the funeral march as the bridal train. 
Was known full well to the ancient trace. 

When death reaped blossom as well as grain. 
Tears followed smiles on the settler's face: 

Tears followed smiles, and tlie old blazed road 

Faded and faded as forests fell. 
Till now where once the latch string showed 

A warmtli of welcome no words can tell 

In the settler's cabin, the rich man's home' 
Stands fair and stately in garden lawn. 

And the trains sweep by, and the people come, 
But the backwoods world is forever gone. 

Forever gone with its rude old ways, 
Its lieartfelt sorrows, its lusty joys, 



THE OLD BLAZED ROAD. 45 

Its restful nights and its toilsome days, 
Its home-spun lassies and bare-foot boys. 

But long shall the lover of nature dream, 
Of the wild, dim path where the spices blew 

Their breath of fragrance by swamp and stream, 
And the red buds flamed when the spring was 
new. 

When the soul of the forest went into the soul 
And sweetened the life with its wild-wood sweets, 

When manners were cordial and costumes droll, 
And hates were not hidden by smooth deceits. 

For haters were haters and men were men, 
And women were fickle and women were trne. 

And lovers were lovers and jealous, then, 
And cooed and (piarrelled as lovers do. 

The scars on the trees to the left and right 
Went beckoning into the forests grand. 

And those who had courage to win the fight. 
Followed and conquered and tamed the land: 

Followed and conquered, and still we dream. 
And backward gaze where the ancient trace 

Wound under the willows and through the stream, 
A wandering rhythm of matchless grace. 

It was good to live in that early time, 
To laugh and to weep by the forest road. 

To toil and struggle, to crawl or climb, 
And carry forward one's daily load. 



46 THE OLD BLAZED ROAD. 

It is better to live in this better day ; — 
As part of the present, to move and thrill 

To its onward motion and pulse and play, 
And true to the new, to the old true still, 

Move forward, forward with ceaseless quest 
For all good things by the Lord bestowed, 

Till we enter at last to the perfect rest 

That lies at the end of the well-blazed road. 



AFTER DECORATION. 47 



AFTER DECORATION. 

The crowds are gone, ihe wreaths lie withering, 
The hymns are hushed and darkness and the dead 
Are mute companions where were hittdy shed 
The tears of women and the flowers of spring. 
0! tears and flowers and eloquence that bring 
That dreadful past back on love's wounded wing, 
And lead us where our heroes fought and bled, 
Ye faint and fail as fails each transient thing: 
But each old mother following back the thread 
Of quickened memory to the curly head 
She pillowed on her bosom ere she read 
Of war and tumult in the land, or said 
" Go forth, my son ! " speaks through her tears 

again, 
The Nation still needs mothers to bequeath it men. 



48 ON GROWING OLD. 



ON GROWING OLD. 

O, sing to me the gladness 
Of spring's rejoicing song, 

Or love's delightful measures 
When summer days are long! 

The ebb-tide moves not sloAvly, 
But still pur souls delay, 

To catch the latest sunshine 
Of youth's receding day. 

We shrink' from yonder darkness 
And waste of pathless main, 

And list each shore-line murmur 
Of far-off youth's refrain. 

In some far, sheltered harbor. 
When o'er the heavenly wall, 

On eyes grown tired with longing, 
A sweeter light shall fall, 

Shall not the storm-tossed vessel 
Cast anchor, safe at last, 

And there the weary spirit 
Renew its happy past? 

O! if for one brief moment 
That joy to me be given, 

'Twill sweeten ever after 
The sweetest joys of heaven. 



THE WEIRS. 49 



THE WEIRS— 1890. 

Fair VVinnepisaukee, I pass by thy shore, 
And I see the white wings of the gulls and the boats, 
And the wandering delirium of sunlight and sh;ide 
That across thy glad waters enchantingly floats, 
And up from the islands, like rapture conveyed 
On the glances of beauty when lovers adore, 
Flieth smiling aloft till the mountains, arrayed 
In that tremulous marvel of shadow and light. 
Seem tenderly veiling their own rugged might. 

O, Winnepisaukee ! Sweet lake of the hills! 
As fair as Killarney, as wild Loch Achray 
Romantic and glad, — there are songs in thy waves 
Like the music of horns, there are echoes that play 
Like the voices that flow from .Eolian caves 
When the wind of the evening its spirit distils 
With the dew and the odor of roses that laves 
Every sense in delight, till we cry in sweet pain 
With the joy of a thought that no words can retain. 

0, Winnepisaukee! the Great Spirit's smile! 
I shall see thee in mem'ry, renew thee in dreams 
When the tides of sweet June gallop in on the wheat. 
And the green herons call to their mates by the 

streams ; 
And thy Islands shall cry and thy mountains repeat 
In my soul to my soul through each long, weary mile 
Of the journey I take, and thy waves kiss my feet 
And thy beauty inspire me, give words to my tongue 
And thy gladness conspire still to keep tlie heart young. 



50 THE LESSOy OF THE GRASS. 



THE LESSON OF THE GRASS. 

The grass that underneath the snow- 
Sends forth its shoots of tender green, 
Recks not though threat'nit g chmds hang low, 

And winds are loud and frosts are keen ; 
For upward through its roots there steals 
A quickening influence that reveals 
The slow-paced summer stealing on — 
In outline faint as some far dawn. 

And so the grass renews its hold 

And lifts its manifold sweet stems 
And spreads faint verdure on the mold 

Along the orchard's sunlit hems; 
For it perceives the secret sweet 
That lifts the heart and speeds the feet 
And thrills the soul of man or bird 
With truth no mortal ear has heard. 

What is this subtle sense that wakes 

The pulses in the tender root, 
Or warns the grass when winter breaks, 

Or thrills the mandrake's hidden shoot? 
And wherefore do the woods and fields 
Begin to smile as winter yields, 
Ere yet the vernal breezes rise 
To warm the earth and paint the skies? 



THE LESSON OF THE GRASS. 51 

And wherefore does the weary heart, 

So long depressed with doubt and gloom, 
Leap up again with sudden start 

As some waked Lazarus from the tomb? 
And love so long a silent shade, 
Why should it quici^en and invade 
The half-roused soul, and make it sing 
As dawn's bird, head still under wing? 

I only know but this — the thought 
Of God or Nature, what you will, — ■ 

The power is all, the name is naught, — 
Seems every haunt of life to fill 

With knowledge, impulse, hope, desire, 

The pulse to quicken, thrill, inspire; 

To swell the bud, expand the leaf, 

Beget the lover's sweet belief, 

And link all things to life and light, 
And warmth of suns and wealth of soils. 

And growth and verdure that delight 
To hide the grim destroyer's spoils, 

Provoking even from foul decay 

New graces for the rising day, 

And from love's loss renewing love, 

Life conquering death at each remove. 

And so I view the passing years 

And see the seasons come and go. 
Sometimes in smiles, sometimes in tears. 

And dimly still through pulse and flow 



52 THE LESSON OF THE GRASS. 

Of all this many-mysteried stream 
That we call nature, catch the gleam 
Of some diviner life, the glow 
Of heaven within the life we know. — 

God's presence in this mortal frjme, 

His thought alike in flower or star. 
His genius in the morning's flame, 

His soul where brooks and lilies are; 
In worlds or systems, suns or seeds, 
On Calvary's cross; where Cato bleeds, 
In life or death, in growth, decay; — 
And all I know I sing and say, 

That closer than w-e think or dream 

The larger world about us lies, 
With life that is life's source, the stream 

Whose waters quicken paradise. 
Howe'er we doubt it bideth near 

And wooes us ever; though we fear 
Its awful presence, still it rests 

A peaceful dweller in our breasts. 

If force is blind and has no care 

For loss or suffering, pain or grief, 
As sombre pessimists declare, 

Shall that destroy our sw^eet belief 
That here or there, or far or near. 

Life holds us in an atmosphere 
Of love divine, serene, intense. 

That heeds no point of time or sense, 



THE LESSON OF THE GRASS. 53 

And from oin- fading clay unfolds 

The fadeless spirit's trembling wing, 
And through the eternal years upholds 

Love, joy and heaven and everything 
Wherein, vvherewilh the soul may gain 

Its mastery over grief and pain ? 
If this be foolish, fools are wise 

To trust the love such seers despise. 



54 ^VRI TTEN IN AN ALB UM. 



WRITTEN IN AN AlBUM. 

You ask for a rhyme in this book of yours: 

A rhyme, fair maiden, of what shall it be? 
Shall it speak the struggle that long endures; 

For the fame that liveth eternally ? 
Ah no, my maiden, fame comes too high 

And wreathes but heads that are growing gray 
Better by far, as the years go by, 

A joy that is steadfast day by day. 
With a laugh to laugh and a song to sing, 

And a hope forever blossoming. 



THOMAS M. BROWNE. 55 



THOMAS M, BROWNE. 

In yieinoriam. 

Wliotn genius blest, and honor crowned with bays, 
And love rewarded with her sacred trust, 
Untouched by blame, unflushed by kindly praise. 
He lies at rest low in our kindred dust. 
How frail is man ; how fleeting honor's breath ! 
But kindly thought and noble deed remain 
To lift our friend above the mold of death, 
In that long life of human hope and gain, 
Wherein, wherefrom the statesman never dies, 
Who lives for man, for liberty is wise. 

O, friend of many years I we come not now 
With long-drawn sighs to moan above thy rest. 
Life's work well done, a victor crowned art thou. 
With freedom's faithful few forever blest. 
Wherefore we call to thee across the line, 
"Hail and farewell;" farewell and sweetest hail! 
The history made, the guerdons won aise thine, 
And ours the influence that shall never fail. 
The long endeavor, the unbroken will. 
The courage dauntless in the face of ill. 

He came to us unfriended in his youth; 
For him no college reared its friendly wall; 
He heard, far off, the rallying cry of truth ; 
Half understood, full trusted that high call; 



56 THOMAS M. BROWNE. 

And so through toil and penury he wrought 
His way to knowledge, purpose, influence, place 
In that domain whose conqueror is thought, 
Whose wealth is wisdom schooled in honor's ways. 
Let youth take heart of hope since those [)revai], 
Who strive with courage, while the halting fail. 

Alike undaunted, 'mid the battle's roar, 

Or in the forum when the storm was loud 

Of angry factions, the white plume he wore 

iShone like an oriflamme above the cloud. 

No coward fears beset his onward way : 

For man, for country, for the toiler's right 

He wrought through years of doubt, and when the 

day 
Of broader freedom rose with clearer light, 
He did not in the auroral splendor pause. 
But strove for wiser measures, better laws. 

Sleep, statesman, soldier, comrade, neighbor, friend ! 
Thy well-earned rest no battle cry shall break. 
Above thy dust the thoughtful people bend, 
With many offerings wrought for love's dear sake. 
Here let the freedman's happy children meet 
And shout their gladness; let the aspiring boy 
Who treads a thorny path with bleeding feet. 
Take courage here and thrill with hope and joy I 
The spot that holds our Tom Browne's honored 

clay, 
Is doubly sacred soil to such as they. 



THOMA S M. BRO WNE. 5 7 



As one by one are quenched the hero's lights, 
Their last tattooes are sounded, and the stars 
Look down in peace from their celestial heights, 
While mercy veils the fiery front of Mars, 
May the sweet silence where they sleep be tilled 
With freedom's presence, and the vital air 
With patriot faith and energies be thrilled, 
To purge the world of slavery, want, despair I 
And so farewell, wise leader — noble friend! 
Like heaven for thee, our love shall have no end. 



58 THE BARD OF THE PEOPLE. 



THE BARD OF THE PEOPLE 

Tliere once was a singer in Scotland, 

A bard of the fields and the streams; 
A poet of love and love's longing, 

A dreamer of wonderful dreams. 
He sang at the plow tail, he sweetened 

With music his sorrowful crust, 
He poured his soul out in libation 

To an age that was hard and unjuet. 

He saw man in honor uprising 

O'er caste and the pride of renown; 
He lashed the dull hy{)ocrite's folly 

And laughed at the dogmatist's frown, 
Then stooped to weep over the daisy 

His plowshare upturned with the sod. 
And with the good cotter at evening 

Sent up his thanksgiving to God. 

He died when the clouds gathered darkly, 

And skies were all hidden from view. 
But yonder in fame's constellation 

His star shineth full in the blue: 
The poet of peasant and lassie, 

The bard of the love-stricken heart, 
His songs like his themes are immortal 

And fadeless and faultless as art. 



THE BARD OF THE PEOPLE. 59 

And still rides the fou Tarn O'Shanter 

Through ages of darkness and storm, 
And love, the perennial enchanter, 

Renews every feature and form — 
Sweet Mary, dear Jean, all that haunted 

Blithe Ay re with the soul of Lang Syne, 
Or cherished this bard of the people 

And rendered his singing divine. 



60 THE MOSSES. 



THE MOSSES. 

To Dan L. Paine, after reading his dainty little volume of poems entitled 
Club Moss. 

As rare and fine as love's design 

Of beauty wrought on cupid's wing, 
Where gently low the breezes blow 

And wildly sweet the thrushes sing; 
On shadowed mold of forests old 

The mosses lift their tiny bells. 
Or spread their carpets, green and gold, 

In nooks of boulder-haunted dells. 

Joy of the earth that gave them birth, 

True children of the soil are they; 
What else were bare, their love and care 

Make beautiful and glad alway. 
Their dainty stems are crowned with gems, 

Fit s[)lendors for a fairy queen, 
And beech roots gray, where s(]uirrels play. 

They lightly bind in verdant sheen. 

On rotten roofs they spread their woofs, 

And hide in smiles their slow decay ; 
O'er crumbling walls their gladness falls 

And crowns dim rocks with hoods of gray. 
They love to run where shade and sun 

Eclipse each other in swift change, 
At meadow side where llzai'ds glide 

And elms their sturdy pickets range. 



THE MOSSES. Q ] 



They woo the breeze, they love the trees, 

And when they fall, with tender care 
Wrap soft and deep their lowly sleep 

In plushes rich and velvets rare, 
Whereon recline the sacred Nine, 

And lovers coo and poets wait; 
And hearts are won and webs are spun. 

And snails are born and ants debate. 

O, mosses sweet! ray idle feet 

Have often sought your haunted nooks, 
And made aware that spirits fare 

Within your realm as thought in books, 
Souls in perfume or song in bloom, 

Or love where April violets spring, 
Have striven in vain to catch one strain 

Of any hapj)y song they sing. 

But here Dan Paine, — God give him gain 

Of all glad witcheries that inspire! — 
Has caught and wound to rhythmic sound. 

Such notes from many a spirit lyre. 
He heard them low where mosses grow 

And brooks and birds their lays repeat; 
He wrought them well, and truth to tell 

Moss roses ne'er were half so sweet. 



6 2 THE SHO UT OF AN OP TIMIS t. 



THE SHOUT OF AN OPTIMIST. 

Once I hung my harp in sorrow 

On the willow branches, crying 
"Love and song have no tomorrow! 

Song and love and hope are dying: 
Puny critics, lying censors, 

Lives that move but to the jingle 
Of the dollar; rhyme dispensers 

Who with amorous measures mingle 
Hints of lustful, loveless passions 

Till love dieth in the waking 
And the few fond hearts it fashions 

Are esteemed but fit for breaking!" 

Hot with childish indignation, 

"These," I cried, "our modern leaders. 
Hail with shout and salutation; 

Give them followers, give them readers; 
Pour your gold into their coffers, 

Wave your night-shade garlands o'er them 
Seize the blossomed bough love offers, 

Tread it under foot before them : 
Drive your poets forth in sorrow, 

While your rhymesters mock their crying, 
' Song and love have no tomorrow. 

Love and song and hope are dying!'" 



THE SHOUT OF AN OPTIMIST. 63 

Yet again. O, breath of morning! 

I perceive thy cooling kisses, 
Thrilling me with subtle warning 

That such lovely world as this is 
Mnst be consecrate forever 

To the higher and the better; 
That each age has some strong lever 

Wherewith man shall break a fetter 
That benumbs him and enthralls him, 

Till some thought-born revelation. 
Like a far-off trumpet, c.ills him, 

To his sunward destination. 

Then I pause and think, remember — 

liove and song and hope grow weary 
Gazing on some fading ember 

Of a fire that once burned clearly; — 
As the ember fades in ashes, 

Lo ! across the heaven is streaming 
Larger light that moves and flashes 

With an ultimate far gleaming 
Into lower depths of sorrow, 

Into nights before unlighted : 
Then I shout and call — " Tomorrow, 

Shall a million wrongs be righted ! " 

Come then, harp! there are no willows 

Worthy thee as are these fingers: 
Not for thee the swaying pillows 

Of the dallying Avind that lingers 



64 THE SHOUT OF AN OPTIMIST. 

With the svveet-souled summer weather 

On the idle string neglected : 
Thou and I must toil together, 

Brave and strong and undejected. 
Should our rude notes be unheeded 

And our loves be food for laughter, 
Yet our trembling songs are needed 

For the sum of the hereafter. 

Hail, O, prophets, poets, sages I 

Through the ages calling, crying; 
On your heaven -illumined pages 

Cent'ring energies undying! 
Leave, small bardlings, your oblivion, 

Ye with meaner singing quickened 
Humblest souls in night's dominion 

Where the shades converged and thickened. 
Poets, lovers, all the air is 

Pregnant with your souls victorious. 
From the bard of our Sierras 

Back to Homer, blind and glorious. 

None may fail the heavens that call him 

And be more than Mammon's creature : 
Ease may fly and woe befall him, 

Grief may darken every feature, 
Yet w'ith strong and high devotion 

To the wiser, better, sweeter, 
Deeper tides in thought's vast ocean, 

He shall know his life completer. 
And with sunward hope unfailing, 



THE SHOUT OF AN OPTIMIST. 65 

Where the myriad barks are thronging, 
He shall set his shallop sailing 
To the shores of love's far longing. 

He who gives is blest in giving, 

Though the gift be small in measure, 
If its thought possess the living, 

Fadeless wealth of love's rich treasure, — 
Love that maketh man immortal, 

Love that on his Atlas shoulders 
Bears the worlds, and at life's portal 

Li thought's crude beginning smoulders 
As a fire that may hereafter 

Light the heavens with its far gleaming ; 
Love that laughs the truest laughter, 

And is sacred even in dreaming. 

Wherefore poets, toilers, sages, 

Men who delve the earth, or soaring 
O'er Olympus, storm the ages, 

Hear the souls of men imploring — 
" Spare no genius, gift, invention. 

Spare no humble toil nor labor, 
Song that echoes love's intention — 

Hope to man and help to neighbor, — 
Hope and help, the Christ in spirit, 

Help and hope, the Buddha's teaching, 
Help, to win life's crown of merit, 

Hope, whose wisdom is best })reaching!" 

Heed, O, Optimists! this crying, 
And let not your gifts lie rusting. 



66 THE SHOUT OF AN OPTIMIST. 

All their strength to man denying, — 

Man the blind, the struggling, trusting,— 
Crushed by greed and superstition, 

Pride of caste and rank and station. 
Dwarfed by ignorance, inanition, 

Sins inherited, starvation, — 
Mind aiid spirit. Hear, and heeding 

Kise from ease's lethean pillows 
And wiih faith to join love's jdeading 

Take your harps down from the willows. 

Yet, be sure of this, my singer, 

Noise is vain and art is fleeting, 
And e'en song shall fail to linger 

Here where shades and myths retreating, 
Backward hurl their dark inventions; 

If it have not soul and measure 
Warmed by love's divine contentions. 

If it hold not some rich treasure 
For the babes of the hereafter, 

Some glad influence, some red letter 
Touch of pathos or sweet laughter 

To inspire and make men better. 



TO CO ATES KINNEY. 67 



TO COATES KINNEY. 

On reading Pessim and Optini. 

Art thou descended from the sea kings old? 

Or wherefore hear we thundering througli thy song 
The voice of seas that will not be consoled, 

But cry and murmur, as the ages throng, 
To stormy capes, green islands, sunless caves, 

To wonder worlds that lie beneath the waves? 

Thy printed page suggests the book un wrought. 

Thy song presages sweeter song to be 
In some deep future, and thy lightest thought 

Flows like the tide upon the summer sea, 
Or when love claims it for his sweet behoof, 

Falls pattering with "the rain upon the roof." 

8ing on, wise bard ! Turn Pessim out to grass 
And let glad Optim lead your onward way; 
Though men may utter as you singing pass 

ad that'- 

Such silvered head is for the poet's crown. 
Stars may be splendid when the sun is down ; 

And when, at last — long hence our love insists — 
Your sun flames down the west and out of sight, 

Our little bards whose songs are vocal mists 
Of faith, hope, music, melody, delight, 

May rise and smile with light for ages far 
And each be deemed a happy morning star. 



6 8 -^lY L ITTLE BRO THER. 



MY LITTLE BROTHER. 

I remember the dear little boy, 

With the seven sweet years in his heart, 
Brief Aprils of sorrow and joy. 

For his life of my life was a part. 

So tender and brave and true, 

Child and man in desire and pursuit, 

April bloom in the ujorning's dew 
With the flavor of ripened fruit. 

Wisdom is sweet in a child 

When it comes in an artless way, 

And is modest and undefiled 

By the pride of our haughty clay. 

You could hear in his quiet words 
More than yonr scholars know, 

And the warble of happy birds 
Was his laughter's undertow. 

He was nature's own and mine 
And our mother's darling pet, 

But the seal of a love divine 
On his little brow was set ; 

And we saw and did not see, 
And we knew and did not know 

That his kindred with bird and bee 
And the winds that whisper low, 



M Y LITTLE BEO THER. 6 9 

Was the sign of a fleeting life, 
Like a rapture, a dream, a tone. 

Or a prayer that stilleth strife. 
Then lea vet h the heart alone. 

Out of heaven there came a cry, 

And our dull ears heard it not, 
Through the maples a moan went by, 

Grief entered our lowly cot. 

That was years and years ago, 

Yet I see his pale, sweet face 
And I rock him to and fro 

And hold him in my embrace. 

Wisdom and sweetest light 

And love and the love of joy, 
Went out of my arms that night 

With the soul of that little boy. 

But after he went away 

And left us a dower of grief. 
There grew in us every day 

The flower of a sweet belief, — 

Bud and blossom and leaf 

Full from the tender shoot. 
And we wait — for the days are brief — 

For the blush of the ripened fruit. 

We wait, and his thought returns 
With his humor's sparkling play, 



70 -I^I' LITTLE BROTHER. 

And the soul within rne yearns 
For the things he used to say. 

I smile at some odd conceit, 

Some quaint, remembered whim, 

And my heart and eyes repeat 
The tenderness learned from him. 

He was only a little child 
AYho lived his little years, 

Who cried, but more often smiled, 
And went out in a rain of tears, 

Yet he liveth in all things sweet 
That I either hear or see; 

In the violet at my feet, 
In the flight of bird or bee; 

In the ring of the poet's rhyme. 
In the tender joy of song, 

In the flush of the summer time 
When the days are fair and long. 

In the shout of my stalwart boy. 
In wife and daughters and home. 

In the pathos of grief or joy. 
In the hope for joys to come. 

There is naught that is good and fair 
That my brother dwells nut in. 

And he holds me from despair 
And wooes me awav from sin. 



MY LITTLE BROTHER. 71 

He and his sister sweet, 

Serene as the summer skies, 
From some divine retreat 

In their holy paradise, 

Seem ever to watch and call, 

With a longing that will not cease, 

To hold me in love's dear thrall 
To the hope of eternal peace. 

It may be a mem'ry, a dream 

AVrought of past joy and grief, 
A thing that doth only seem, 

A figment of old belief. 

Be it so ! if you will, but I 

Feel it blessing and peace to be 
In the Eden of days gone by 

When they were as one with me. 

And therefore it seemeth meet 
That in all things good and fair, 

My brother and sister sweet 
Are my wardens everywhere. 



72 BREAK, SAD HEART! 



BREAK, SAD HEART! 

Break, break ! weak heart ! 

Hard heart, so sad and cold I 

Days, years go by and joys are inanif(»kl ; 
And yet thou hidest, Avith a stupid art, 

Thy daily bliss and delvest in the mold 
Of selfish sorrows; thy diviner part 

Holding itself as slave to fame or gold. 
Break ! restless heart ! 

So sad and hard, unsatisfied and cold! 

Break, break, sad heart! 

And breaking break the thongs 

That bind thee to a thousand slavisli wrongs; 
To cruel creeds and selfish greeds that part 

Our little lives from the diviner throngs 
Of heavenly messengers, whose daily art 

Each little joy in greater joy prolongs. 
Break, weary heart ! 

And break the burden of thy many wrongs! 

Yet, break not, heart! 

For broken hearts must fail! 

Whole-souled are they who over ill prevail 
And yield no good to disappointment's smart, 

But struggle sunward even when foes assail, 
And hold themselves alike in church or mart 

Prophets of hope and bearers of love's grail. 
Be strong, O heart ! 

And by thy strength in weakness, still prevail. 



BREAK, SAD HEART! 73 

Be strong, O, heart ! 

But let thy foolish pride 

And greed be broken, lay thy hates aside, 
Or trample them beneath thy feet and part 

From vain ambitions that are best denied, 
And find in every spot some gentle art 

To woo thee as a lover woos his bride 
And give thee peace, poor, weary, aching heart ! 
Fond, foolish heart ! 

Seek daily blessing and be satisfied. 



74 THE HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 



THE HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 

Within, without this mortal shell 

That faints and falls as shadows fade, 
The real house in which we dwell 

Lifts up its towers in suli or shade; 
In sun or shade, in heat or cold, 

By native groves, on foreign strands, 
We seek contentment, love — consoled. 

In this dear house not made with hands. 

I know not where its porches end, 

I reck not that its turrets rise 
From sure foundations, till they blend 

With the far cities of the skies; 
How wide its walls, how large its halls, 

No thought within me understands, 
Nor whence the healing shadow falls 

On this fair house not made with hands. 

No seas so wide, no caves so deep. 

No path so lone, no crowd so great, 
But safe the earnest soul may keep 

Its home enjoyments, simple state; 
Its far, sweet yearnings, sweeter faith. 

Its treasures from all climes, all lands, 
All regions known to life or death. 

Within our house not made with hands. 



THE HOUSE BOT MADE WITH HANDS. 75 

Its walls out-measure time and space, 

Or narrow to a closet's girth, 
Hold heaven and hell in their embrace 

Or only one poor clod of earth. 
They shut us close and hold us fast 

When self adored and sov'reign stands, 
Till pining to be free, at last, 

Even from our house not made with hands. 

We tread self down, touch hands and kiss 

With that far greater self that knows 
Itself akin to all that is; — 

All life, all action, all repose; 
Our visions widen then, the walls, — 

Winged walls — expand as day expands, 
And we, whole-hearted, tread the halls 

Of our great house not made with hands. 

Our house not made by mortal pains 

Hath deep foundations in the core 
And heart of things, nor storms nor rains. 

Nor earthquake shocks, nor fires that pour 
Their molten rocks in boiling seas 

Disturb its walls ; sublime it stands 
And offers shelter, rest and peace, — 

Our fadeless house not made with hands. 

In what far ages old and dim 

In crusts of steaming worlds that late 

Had sung in fire their morning hymn, 
When matter first grew constellate. 



76 THE HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HASDS. 

Our house was planned, its purpose wrought 
And shapen on life's primal sands, 

Evades the quest of prying thought 

In this wide house not made with hands*. 

"Eternal in the heavens," 'tis said, 

Eternal in the eternal now, 
We answer, and the happy dead 

Call back the answer. Where or how 
Its walls are bounded, why they swell 

Or shrink about us like strong bands, 
We know not; know but this, we dwell 

Within a house not made with hands. 

Oh, blessed house not made with hands ! 

Enriched by all that man has won 
On stormy seas, on smiling lands, 

By all the sweetness of the sun; 
Engarnitured b}^ things divine; 

Diviner than love understands, 
Past, present, future, all combine 

To bless our house not made with hands. 

All evolutions, all estates. 

All thought, all wisdom, all desire. 
Are one Avithin its crystal gates7 

For him who from Promethean fire 
Has caught the glow that warms and thrills, 

Sets life in motion and expands 
Love's sweet ambition till it fills 

This boundless house not made with hands. 



THE HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 77 

The faded leons on its walls 

In pictured glory reappear, 
The far prophetic future calls 

In every note that wakes the ear 
To sweetest music, or the low, 

Soft breezes murmur that commands 
All vagrant fancies as they flow 

In this our home not made with hands. 

Not made with hands, unwrought by toil, 

And wide as love's immortal arms; 
Shall men who dig and men who moil 

For greed of gold that only harms, 
Or greed of lust that blights and slays, 

Or greed of power, till spent as brands 
In furnace fires, renew their days 

Safe in the house not made with hands? 

Vain question! since each soul must dwell 

In its own mansion, foul or fair. 
Though days return not, judge we well 

That pain is endless, and despair 
Eternal to the trembling soul 

That in the darkened chamber stands? 
Sometime, somewhere, the light may roll, 

Through all the house not made with hands. 

Our mansions are prepared for us, 

Not we for them, but in them, lo ! 
This house was, is, shall be, and thus 

Life, birth, enjoyment, death, grief, woe, 



76 THE HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 

Are all within and not without; 

No fierce gensdhirmes, with rude commands, 
May hurl the poor house-keeper out 

From this dear home not made with hands. 

Ah, me! how crude and tame the words 

With which thought struggles after thought ; 
The babblement of brooks and birds, 

That seems but music meaning nought, 
Exceeds us often when we fain 

Would only tread thought's border lands 
And hear the eternal sea's refrain 

Pulse through the house not made with hands. 

Perhaps hereafter men shall hear 

And feel and see where we are blind 
And deaf and numb, and thought shall sphere 

Itself to knowledge unconfined 
By time's environment, sin's thrall. 

Till ev'n the earth-bound soul commands 
Some measure of the all in all — 

The fadeless house not made with hands. 

But we whose narrow visions fail. 

Who grope and guess and walk by faith; 
Who only through our love prevail 

O'er hourly anguish, daily death; 
To us this yearning thought is sweet — 

Our house immortal is and stands 
Where life's full fruit and promise meet — 

A Heavenly house not made with hands. 



0, NAKED SOUL! 7^ 



0, NAKED SOUL! 

O, naked soul! bereft of each disguise, 

Each flattering pretense wherewith thou didst hide 
Thy many frailties from thy own weak eyes, 

Torn from thee, e'en the friendly night denied 
And the white light thrown on thy nakedness; 

Thy nakedness, thy wounds, thy selfish stains; 
What sorrows rend thee and what dire distress 

Of torturing fears augment thy many pains! 

O, naked soul! 'tis in thy nakedness 

That thou shalt know God with thee and at hand, 
The searching gaze which needs that none confess 

That He should see and feel and understand : 
And in thy nakedness alone, alone, — 

Whereat thy eyes must weep, thy tears arise — 
Can thy own needs unto thyself be known, 

And hate be hateful even in honor's guise. 

Away with every subterfuge, away 

With every ceremony, every right 
That seeks to parry e'en the fiercest ray 

Of God's all-searching, all-revealing light! 
Bid science delve and let the poet soar. 

Bid truth escape from ancient myths and be 
The faithful mirror of all things, the lore 

Of past and present, time, eternity! 



80 0, NAKED SOUL J 



O, naked soul! forget thy coward fears! 

The light but loves thee, it shall hold thee fast, 
And sweet'ning thee, perhaps, by many tears, 

Reveal thee to thyself so cleansed at last 
That thou shalt draw to Nature's mother breast 

And weep thy ecstasy upon her heart. 
And cradled there, as some sweet child at rest, 

Smile with the day and with the day depart. 



TO THE SURVIVORS OF THE THIRTY-SIXTH INDIANA. 81 



TO THE SURVIVORS OF THE THIRTY-SIXTH 
INDIANA VOLUNTEERS. 

On being made an honorary mtmher of their Regimental Association. 

This is a real honor. Soldiers, heroes, friends, 
To be linked with you, hand and heart, 
You men of peace, who chose the part 

Of combat for the right ; whose history blends 
With liberty's; who learned not war's dread art 
For hate or conquest; you whose deeds impart 

Their lustre to the State ; whose love ascends 
At Freedom's shrine forever. This to me 
Is more than honor; for tonight I see 

Sweeping again your full batallion line — 

A thousand heroes with but one design — 

To that long march whence many came no more 
And hail your glad return, when o'er 

Your tattered colors Fame had written her sign. 



82 THE COMING OF WINTEfi. 



THE COMING OF WINTER. 

The leaf from the maple bough is blown 
And the white flower from the thorn ; 

And what shall we do when the night has flown 
And the clouds hang low at morn? 

But yesterday were the meadows green, 
Tonight they are white with snow, 

And the cattle crowd, for the winds are keen, 
Where the straw ricks stand a-row. 

Good bye, good bye I to the robin's song 
And the mock-bird's checkered lay ; 

The frozen road will be* rough and long 
And some may fall by the way. 

We'll gather us close to the ingle side, 

While story and song abound, 
And bloom shall safe in the bud abide 

Till the birds and the spring come round. 

And who'll be gone, and who'll be here 

To see the lilies born, 
AVhen leaves on the maple bough appear 

And white flowers on the thorn? 



A COLLOQUY. 83 



* A COLLOQUY. 

{This diahrjue derives its interest from the excellence of the answers, uhich 

are by Lee 0. Harris, who has kindly consented to their 

use in this volume.) 

QUESTION. 

Can you tell me, old man, why our hearts are still 

li^ht, 

And to gladness and song we incline? 

I thought men grew old when their heads became 

white 

And their souls then discarded the Nine. 

— P. 

REPLY. 

If the heart hath a song when its spring time appears, 

And it yield to the Muse's control, 
Why should it be mute when the Autumn of years 

Hath ripened the fruit of the soul? 

The hand of the minstrel may tremble with age, 

And his harp may be sadly unstrung, 

But memory tenderly turneth the page 

And the music forever is young. 

— //. 

QUESTION. 

Can you tell why it is that the fields are more green, 
And the flowers gain in beauty each year? 

■• Written for and read at the annual meeting of the Western Assc- 
cintion of Writers, in 1890. 



84 ^ COLLOQUY. 



I can't make it out, but full, calm and serene, 
I acknowledge this truth, with a tear. 

That as pride falls away and old fallacies fade, 

And ambition sinks low in the dust, 
Love maketh us bold where we once were afraid. 

And our doubts are but shadows of trust. 

— P. 

REPLY. 

On the pathway we tread, while the passions endure, 

Lieth dust from our hurrying feet ; 
But the rain-drops of sorrow can render it pure; 

Then the fields and the flowers grow sweet. 

We pass from the brambles ambition hath strewn, 

And the roses of pride shall decay. 
But low in the vale where we journey, are sown 

The lilies of love by the way. 

Ambition and pride, like a story long told. 

Shall fade as the passions grow chill; 
But the love and the song, they can never be old. 

Till the heart of the minstrel is still. 

— H. 



SO.yO OF THE DEW DROP. 85 



SONG OF THE DEW DROP. 

I am a drop of dew- 
Soiled on the dusty leaf ; 

Shadowed and trembled through 
By night's departing grief. 

Come to me, sunlight, come! 
Kiss me and make me fair. 

Warm me and bear me home 
Into the realms of air! 

Breeze of the summer, rise! 

Lift but the quivering spray, 
Then I shall see the skies 

Beckon me far away. 
I am a fragile thing 

Born of the sun and sea: 
The touch of an insect's wing 

Is the rush of storm to me. 

Mirroring tree and sky, 

A world within me lies, 
And lights in my depths may vie 

With glances of beauty's eyes. 
I shall be lost to sight, 

Won by the warm, sweet day; 
My leaf, at the fall of night. 

Shall bear but a dust of gray. 



86 J'-i TE IN NO VEMBER. 



LATE IN NOVEMBER. 

The last sweet leaf — a golden leaf, 

Still touched with emerald, flushed with red, 
Hangs fluttering in its happy grief, 

A souvenir of summer dead. 
The winds have blown, the woods are strown 

With spoils from all the fading year; 
But who shall moan when seeds are sown 

Whence bud and bloom shall reappear? 

Down many a smiling water-way 

The willows swish in lithe delight 
Their tawny tentacles that sway 

In rhythmic motion day and night. 
With nut-browned hands November stands 

And vacillates 'twixt cloud and sun. 
O'er bottom lands the fog expands 

Its smoky shroud when day is done. 

Old winter hovers in the mist 

Of gray that blurs the wooded hill, 
Where hardy camphor flowers resist 

His skirmish line with hero will. 
Brown fields of corn^hat moan forlorn 

And flaunt their tatters on the wind, 
All stripped and torn in hasty scorn, 

Stand empty like the dotard's mind. 



LA TE IN NO VEMBER. 87 

And so the year wanes to its close; 

And so the winter draweth nigh, 
When earth shall take her hrief repose, 

And sleep and rest when storms are high. 
When winds are loud and, like a shrond, 

The snow lies white on hill and vale, 
Then dreams shall crowd where age sits bowed, 

Repeating youth's remembered tale. 

But in sheathed buds are baby leaves. 

Close curled in seeds are flower and tree, 
And when spring's martins seek the eaves 

And from his hive escapes the bee, 
Then all day long shall bloom and song 

Proclaim life's victories full and sweet. 
And lovers throng and hope be strong 

And children run on eager feet. 

For nature never balks nor fails, 

Nor makes one season spoil the rest ; 
Her promise buds when spring prevails, 

Grows strong when summer fareth best; 
Matures complete and full and sweet 

When autumn ripens into peace; 
Then snow and sleet and storm repeat 

Their yearly toil for life's increase. 

Late in November, yet a hint 

Of summer joy makes glad the sky; 

And still perfumes of flower and mint 
On vagrant breezes wander by, 



88 LA TE IN AO VEMBER. 

So man grows old, the warm blood cold, 
And yet the soul is still aware 

Of manifold delights untold 

And love's coaipulsion in the air. 

Is still aware that heaven bends low 

To warm the earth and paint the sky 
And hope displays the promised bow 

On clouds of doubt that wander by : 
Is still aware of that sweet care 

That notes the sparrows as they fall 
And through despair or trust doth bear, 

Or soon or late, some good for all. 



CASCO BA Y. 89 



*CASCO BAY 

If e'er you sail on Casco Bay 

When fields are green and skies are sweet, 
And watch the foam-capped waves at play 

AVhere land and sea touch hands and greet, 
As friend with friend, in rude delight; 

Your soul, like birds at break of day, 

Will rise for many a joyous flight 

Midst summer isles of Casco Bay: 

Of Casco Bay ! Sweet Casco Bay ! 

Where life is joy and love at play 

Midst summer isles of Casco Bay. 

Oh, wild and glad and circling far, 

The ripples sparkle from your prow 
As silvery laughter from a star 

When Venus decks the evening's brow; 
And where the islands stand apart. 

The ocean waves roll in to pay 
Some tribute from the sea's great heart 
To gentle, queenly Casco Bay: 
To Casco Bay ! Dear Casco Bay ! 
Your soul imbibes the salt-sea spray, 
And sings with lovely Casco Bay. 

- My thanks are due to the Century Company for permission to use 
Casco Bay in this volume. 



90 CA SCO BAY. 



Down smiling channels shadows run 

And shimmer on the green blue tides ; 
And, booming like a far-off gun, 

"Where Harpswell sea from sea divides, 
You hear the breakers' sullen roar 

And watch the waves ascend in spray, 
"While all around, behind, before. 
The white sails swell on Casco Bay : 
On Casco Bay I Fair Casco Bay! 
The white sails fill and bear away 
The happy ships on Casco Bay. 



LIGHTER MEASURES, 



THE TIDE MILL. ^3 



THE TIDE MILL. 

The tide flows in and the tide flows out, 
And the miller stands at his seaward door. 

And the sailors hail him with song and shout 
While the mill grinds on and the breakers roar. 

They have harnessed the wave to the creaking wheel, 
And it sighs at its toil in a lonesome way, 

And barnacles crust on the slimy keel 
Of the slow barge loitering down the bay. 

But the barge is rich with the tide mill's gain, 
And the miller smiles as the sunlight streams 

Athwart its sails, and forgets the pain 
Of his daily task in its golden gleams. 

Sail on, O bark ! to the hungry town. 

With the snowy wealth of the old tide mill, 

As the stones go round and the tide runs down, 
And the white dust settles on roof and sill. 

Sail on, O, barge ! there are mouths to fill 
In the skipper's cot on the lobster boat; 

And the shining coins for the miller's till 
May gather rust as you idly float. 

The miller he winketh his leeward eye, 

For a thrifty miller and wise is he. 
And he sings, as the mackerel smacks go by, 

A lusty song of the fog-bound sea. 



94 THE TIDE MILL. 



But all the while that he vows to wait 

For the "white, white ship with the white, white 
sail," 

He thinks of a cot and a wicker gate, 
And a baby lass, and her mother pale, 

Still sewing there in the porch's shade; 

And he thanks his stars for the salt sea tide, 
That ebbs for the mother and flows for the maid. 

And grinds for the matron as once for the bride. 

And he shouts his joy to the laughing sea, 

And the skippers laugh back as they sail away, 

For a merry miller and wise is he 

As his baige goes loitering down the bay. 



THE MORTGAGE. 95 



THE MORTGAGE. 

I dont mind the wind and the weather, 
The blizzard, the thaw or the freeze. 

But when the crops fail, then we gather 
The mortgage's surplus of squeeze. 

Perhaps if we had a full season 
Of seed-time and harvest and fruit. 

And prices were good, there'd be reason 
To put forth a resolute foot. 

But, somehow, I feel, to my sorrow, 
A small scrap of paper outweighs 

All wisdom and strength I can borrow. 
Or force from the strength of my days. 

I must sleep, I grow old, I grow weary, 
The mortgage eats on night and day; 

When the winter is songless and dreary, 
It is sucking my life-blood away. 

And delights in my misery, and makes rae 
A fool to the gay or the wise; 

And if I would Hee it o'ertakes me. 
Reproach in its hunger-grown eyes. 

Like the star fish that feeds on the oyster. 
Like the soulless old man of the sea. 

It clings, this insatiate roysterer, 
This glutinoi>s glutton, to me. 



9 6 THE MOR TG A G E. 



"You wrong me, you gi-ipve me, you make me 
Seem hard and unfeeling and bad, " 

The slimy thing whispers. "Forsake me I " 
I cry, "you are driving me mad!" 

It only clings closer and closer, 

And mocks at my pitiful need; 
When we both breathe our last, the disposer 

Will resurrect it as a deed ; 

But I shall go naked and bleeding 

Where thousands of mortgagors throng, 

In the limbo of souls where all pleading 
And innocent creatures belong. 

And should I go thence up to heaven. 

Or hades, or — well, anywhere, 
I'll rejoice in whatever is given. 

Provided no mortgage is there. 



THE I-IBST CAWS. 97 



THE FIRST CAWS. 

He sits aloft on the ragged fir, 

A blotcli of midnight above the snow, 

With his shining, impatient wings astir, 

While peering and nodding and bowing low, 

As if to awaken some quick applanse 

For the first of his spring-announcing caws. 

Look out for your fresh eggs, speckled hen I 
Have a care for your darlings, goosey gray! 

So sure as the spring time comes again 
He'll bring liis harem and court this way, 

And eggs and goslings, by natural laws, 

Are treasure trove to this prince of caws. 

He may shiver and shake in the biting cold. 
But he knows that the sun is climbing high. 

And the heart within him is true and bold, 
Though his methods are thought to be 
somewhat sly ; 

So he pluckily waits till the ice drift thaws, 

Then hails the spring with a song of caws. 

A hardy old pioneer is he 

Who forces his way to the frozen north, 
And the months that follow will surely see — 

A tribute of praise to his valorous worth — 
Long lines of followers, black as haws, 
Joining their own with his moving caws. 



98 TO JOHN CLARK RID PA Til. 



TO JOHN CLARK RIDPATH. 

On completing fiis Jif fifth year. {Written fo)- the celebration of that event, 
April 27, 1891.) 

I once heard a story related, or sung, 

Of a jolly old chap who forever was young; 

Who wasted no time in bemoaning his fate. 

When spring greens were backward and robins were 

late, 
When frosts nipped the beans and the hens ceased to 

lay, 
And it rained every night and blew cold every day ; 
While the newspapers grumbled about the hard times, 
And the augur-eyed critic dissected his rhymes. 
His smile put on features more broadly sublime; 
And "'twill all come out right in the best of good 

time!" 
Was the saying he doted upon, I've been told, 
Even after he grew to be fifty years old. 

And, man, I remember as clear as can be, 

When I was a boy in eighteen eighty-three. 

And they came and cried out in my tender young ears 

"Today you will finish your first fifty years I " 

How I thought of the things that my grandfather told 

Of the way a man feels when he gets to be old ; 

And I felt of myself, body, spirit and brain. 

And wondered why people at fifty complain 

That old age is coming with frowns on his face, 

When they're just fairly started in life's earnest race. 



TO JOHN CLA RK RIDPA TH. 99 

At fifty, my lad, we begin to suspect 
That we don't know it all, that we are not elect, 
Among men. to bear all of ihe burdens of all, 
From th' latest ward caucus to man's primal fall; 
And hence if one have a whole heart and a mind 
That to knowledge and sweetness and truth is 

inclined, 
The half-century mark may not bode him gnat ill, 
Nor the sun in its path be invoked to stand still 
Till he overthrow Amnjon, in slaughter and tears, 
That his valor may win some proud mark for his 

years. 

He has won his own kingdom, his soul and hinieelf, 
And when death shall lay him at last on the shelf, 
As a volume that served its small day and was fuod 
For minds that were groping their way to the good, 
He shall go with the calmest assurance and trust 
That worth shall not always be prisoned in dust ; 
For worth is still worth, be it humble or great, 
And love ever holds the divinest estate. 

As we learn of man's cruelty, hatred and sin. 
We are taught in what frailties his errors begin ; 
And the soul that is wise will but deepen in love. 
As from childhood and innocence forward we move ; 
And he groweth old with the tenderest grace 
Who keepeth still warm in his spirit's embrace 
That perennial youth which, like mercy, remains 
A support to the soul, as the wealth of sweet rains 
Is food to the lily and strength to the oak. 



100 TO JOHN CLARK RID PA Tit. 

Till life yields to frost or the lumberman's stroke. 
So all is summed up in the words that were said 
By the instrument-maker, whose long look ahead 
Was fraught with philosophy, full of the wise 
And homely good sense that links man to the skies 
"Keep a conscience that's void of offense in God's 

sight, 
And keep all the nautical instruments bright!" 



SOCIETY VERSE. 101 



SOCIETY VERSE. 

(), give me a poem with blood in its veins, 

A soul in its pulse, and a flow 
That swells like the rush of a stream after rains 

When the mountains are losing their snow. 

Or give me a song that comes warm from the heart. 

With a pathos that melts into tears, 
Or a melody wrought from the echoes that start 

From the tomb of the long-buried years : 

And I can go out on ''a fine poet rave," 
And dream with your dreamer all night; 

And sing every star to its luminous grave 
In the blush of the morning's delight. 

But when you come in with your lavender rhymes, 

Your sapless and motionless things; 
Your rose-tinted saw-dust and ice-tinkered chimes 

And fancies with gold foil for wings ; 

Then pray let me sleep the sweet sleep of the just, 

Like all things that nature esteems; 
And when the birds wake me, as one from the dust, 

You will not have troubled my dreams. 



1 02 S£R VICE. 



SERVICE. 

To serve the wise, or good, or great, 
AVere surely no ill-ordered fate; 
E'en grievous toil might well be borne, 
And soul and body, service worn, 
]\Iight feel the joy of having wrought 
For princely worth or kingly thought. 

But service forced from you, but once. 
By some conceited, place-proud dunce. 
Some empty prig who thinks it meet 
To tread your manhood 'neath his feet, 
Becomes an evil to your thought, 
A mountain sorrow shaped and wrought 
By hands ignoble, a growing shame 
Whose burden leaves you bent and lame 
And hurt in spirit; a disgrace 
That meets you often face to face. 
And laughs and chuckles at your plight. 
And in fine scorn says "Served you right! 
You cringed to liini of little worth. 
And let him crush you to the earth; 
Now bow to me through all the years 
And pay the tribute of your tears, 
And walk with me your little span 
For having thus been less than man. " 



TO OUR SINGING DOCTOR. 103 



TO OUR SINGING DOCTOR. 

J N. M. 

Dear Galen, I thank thee again for thy singing, 
As one thanks the robins that herald the spring, 

When brows that are aching 

And hearts that are breaking 
Are mended because of tlie promise they bring. 

Through woods, over meadows my love fareth 

winging. 
For, " bard of the prairies, " my soul clings to thee 

As mists to the fountain, 

As clouds to the mountain. 
As islanders cling to their crofts by the sea. 

No pink teas inspire thee Avitli frigid emotion 
To twitter in triolets over ice cream ; 

Nor yet may those measures 

That scorn the rich treasures 
Of music and melody utter thy dream. 

The voice of the prairies, the breath of devotion, 
Up fresh from the sod, from the blossom, the tree, 

In summer exhaling 

Are still the prevailing 
Provokers of song to the spirit of thee. 



•^ 



104 TO OUR SISGISG DOCTOR. 



Like ancient Anacreon, to love and love's longing 
Thou touchest a harp with no note out of tune; 

The snows may be flying, 

Eurocklydon crying, 
But when thou art singing 'tis always sweet June. 

0, bard of the prairies! long may thy dreams 

tiironging 
Flow into men's souls with their raptures divine; 

May glad intimations 

And rare divinations 
And forecasts of paradise ever be thine. 



TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION. 105 



TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION. 

An owl that dozed in a hollow tree, 

Heard a sparrow's ground notes ringing; 

"A fig for such chirruppy stuff," said he! 

" I grant there's enough as to quantity, 

But alack and alas! as to quality, 
By my soul it is not singing." 

" 0, beautiful owl, O, sunbright owl! 

Up there in thy fair dominions, " 
The sparrows twittered, " come down sweet fowl, 
And learn that a sparrow is not an owl 

To share thy broad opinions. 

"For the sparrow he chirpeth soft and low- 
Where the brooklet runs with laughter, 

And the sun shines fair and the daisies grow ; 

But the owl he waits till the night hangs low, 
And tlien comes hooting after." 



1 06 AFTERNOON PHILOSOPHY. 



AFTERNOON PHILOSOPHY. 

I have written some reason, some rhyme, 
Have tried to be solemn, sublime; 
Have bored for the fountain of tears 
And only reached gas, as the years 
Have drifted and faded away, 
liike the songs and the sighs of a day. 

But now, when a new year comes in, — 

It may be a sorrow, a sin, 

A thing that foreshadows decay, — 

I trifle and pause and delay, 

And turn back to June and the rose, 

And hug the grate close when it snows. 

And murmur and mutter and scold 

At the manners, the times and the cold. 

Such cold, too I not hearty and strong, 
Like the old winter days with their throng 
Of labors, delights and good cheer, 
That welcomed the birth of the year; 
But, creeping, and sneaking, and damp, 
It assails you with shiver and cramp, 
And goes to your marrow and brings 
A thousand rheumatical stings. 

I'm not getting old; on my word. 
Such a thought is extremely absurd; 
It's the fashions, the people, the times; 



AFTERNOON PHILOSOPHY. \ 07 

Society, fiction and rhymes 
That are all out of joint, and you know 
Our snow's not at all like the snow 
That fell when the country was new 
And the linsey-clad lassies were true. 

But ho, and heigh ho ! here the boys 

And the girls, with their chatter and noise, 

Come rolicking in from the street 

With wind-painted cheeks and glad feet; 

And my eye feels the blur of a tear, 

For I vow it's the same old new year 

That we welcomed two score years ago 

With the bells and the shouts and the flow 

Of laughter and song, and the lone 

Shrill cry of the late lover's tone, 

•'* I'm here with my sleigh, Maud, alone!" 

Youth only is youth, I'm aware. 

But wrinkles and doubt and gray hair. 

And the sorrow of life and the core 

Of all sorrows that mortals deplore 

For the sweet might-have-been folly slew 

W^hen the long days of morning were new, 

Are forgotten and quite blotted out 

When the children with laughter and shout 

Come in at love's wide-open door 

And bring us the morning once more. 

You may theorize all that you mar. 
You may give your philosophy sway. 
Or with maxim and dogma engage 



08 AFTERNOON PHILOSOPHY, 

To check the advances of age, 
Yet I say and repeat and repeat, 
That the shuffle of juvenile feet, 
And the gladness of juvenile joy. 
Bubbling up from the heart of a boy, 
Or the soul of a girl, as the flow 
Of sunshine that warms with its glow, 
Can bring back the spirit of youth, 
The light of its innocent truth, 
A thousand times over again. 
Where all wisdom of speech or of pen 
Would fail in life's age-folded wing 
To incite one soft flutter of spring. 

You may sing what the young owe the old, 

And it is as a tale that is told; 

But yield the sweet gift to my tongue 

To sing what the old owe the young, 

And I will reply with a song 

That shall bring back the days that were long. 

That shall wake 'neath the mid-winter moon 

The love-lighted evenings of June, 

And the longing of youth and the tears, 

And the multiplied bliss of the years. 



AV RE VOIR, 109 



AU REVOIR. 

One sings alone for joy of song, 

And one for hope of gain; 
Auotiier sings for dreams that throng 

The paths of doubt and pain. 

And who shall win and who shall wait, 

Whose songs the people heed ? 
When nights are old and moons are late. 

Whose lonely heart shall bleed? 

For hearts must bleed and men must wait, 

And many a bard must fail, 
And some sit cold and desolate 

When snows of age prevail. 

I, who have never dared to claim 

The poet's right divine, 
Have wrought in love's benignant name 

These faltering lays of mine. 

They gushed from out an ardent soul 

That nature bade to sing, 
And if they fail of art's control, 

Or want the flow and swing 

That give the lyric muse her power, 

I shall not bow in shame, 
But pray for some immortal dower 

Of love's diviner flame. 



110 A U REVO I R. 



And toiling down the western slope 
Where evening shadows throng, 

I fain would garner sweeter hope 
In richer sheaves of song. 

But if this may not be, O, friends! 

And I should strive in vain, 
And walk unknown where day-light eiiils 

And niglits are dark with rain; 

Pray s{)eak but this for my poor art; 

"He missed the call divine, 
But never stooped to wound a heart 

Or print a cruel line." 



THE CAB IS IN THE CLEARING. 



The Cabin 
in the Clearing 

AND OTHER POEMS 



CHARLES H. KERR <t- CO., PUBLISHERS, 

175 Dearborn St., CHICAGO. 



313 Pages, neatly printed, on fine, heavy paper. Price, in 

Plain Cloth Binding:, SI. 50; in Russia Leather, 

red or gilt edges, S3. 00. 



The book cun be obtained of the booksellers or by address- 
ing tlie publishers, as above, enclosing price, or of the auth- 
or, Ben.t. S. Parker, New Castle, Ind. 

FROM AMONGST MANY WE SELECT THE FOLLOWING 
NOTICES FROM THE PRESS AND CRITICS. 

Includes some unpretentious verses of decided .'poetic merit. — 
[Literary World, Boston. 

But easy wrltiug has not made bard reading in tills case. Every- 
thing is^slmple, sweet and clear.— [Christian Register, Boston. 

Mr. Parker is a "plain, blunt man," evidentlv, with a good deal 
of poetry in his composition. He sings of the settler's life in the 
West, and there he is at his truest and best.— [Boston Trauscript. 

Every line is natural and there is no straining after effect. As 
pretty a song as exists In the language is the poem through which 
runs the refrain, " 'Tis Morning and the Days are Long."— [Indian- 
polls News. 

The brief preface commends itself. It is neither an apology nor 
a psean of self-praise, and indicates the refinement of good serise; 
and good sense, as Gulzot well says, is the genius of humanity. 
There is much that is pleasant ana attractive in thisS volume.— 
[Boston Evening Traveler, 

While the poet's versification Is varied, the rhythm is a continued 
melody, and while the subjects are many, the thought and ex- 



THE CABIN /.V THE CLEARISG. 



EressiOD are pure, a compliment alike to the author's iiead and 
eart, and the favorable recepilon of these songs will be commen- 
surate with their circulation.— [The current. 

He [the author] has done for the simple but noble pioneer folk 
of our state what the SeotMsli plowman did for the peasantry of 
Scotland. He who can read •' I'he Cabio In the Clearing"' without 
a softened heart is a poor piece or humanity indeed. * * * The 
variety of composition in the volume is remarkable.— [Madison 
Daily Courier. 

There is a kindliness, a tenderness and a homelikeness In these 
verses that will give them a wider circle of readers than more or- 
nate and classical word pictures can secure. An earnest sense of 
truth, beauty, nature and love pervades and makes them charm- 
ing.— [Jeffersonvilie Evening- News. 

The book should have a wide circulation. * * The poem on 
Morton is alone worth more than the price of the volume.— [Warsaw 
Times. 

The poet has known the haunt of partridge and gray squirrel, the 
taste of May apple and haw and hish paw-paw. Here is that "local 
color" for which our English critics have so often clamored, and the 
genuine ,, . , . • , ,, 

"Artless art that tames long." 

— [Ahce Williams Brotherton In Unity, Chicago. 

He sings like a wood-bird, because he has something to sing, and 
this is one of the gieat merits of this modest volume of poems. 
There is nothing artihclal about it.— [Cincinnati Times-Star. 

Mr. Parker's volume Is attracting unusual attention, and will be 
sure to win its way as the sweetness and the soundness of his muse 
become better known.— [Indianapolis Sunday Journal. 

Humor and pathos are so blent together in his lines that the 
smile has not quit your lips befuie tears are in your eyes.— [Charles 
J. O'Maliey in Henderson, Ky., Journal. 

The author of these poems must be a pleasant man to know.— 
[Portland, Me., Advertiser. 

If in all this busy, hurrying world there can be, in its graver con- 
templation, a belter thing to think of than a simple, honest human 
heart, it Is to feel that that heart is the possession of a man as gen- 
erously blest with the Intellect controlling it— that degree;nf_iiber- 
al intelligence, however superior to our own, that still holds faith- 
ful comradeship with all men, artd so unconsciously fits itself for 
universal love and veneration. 

In my sinceie belief the author of "The Cabin in the Clearing" 
and Its attendant poems is such a man, and I would thus humbly 
pay a righteous tribute to both the master and his inspired singing. 
—[James Whitcomb Riley. 

There is a suflicient number of fine poems in it to give the author 
a lasting place in the literature or the country. I am surprised at 
the virility and lofty spirit of many of these poems. In the lan- 
guage of Longfellow, 

"His verse 

Is tender, musical and terse." 

—[Dr. J. N. Matthews. 

It is a mighty good cabin. We have moved into it with the great- 
est of pleasure and enjoyment.— [Prof. W. H. V'enable. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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